What is anarchy?

7/27/2019 What is anarchy?

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What is

anarchy?

by

Jeremy

Entwistle

Askthem!Askthepeoplewhatitmeans,theywilltellyou!They

don’thaveanyideawhatitmeans,buttheywilltellyou!Theywill

tell youanarchy is a fight against thestate, against theman,

against everything. And you, you will feel threatened by the

anarchists because you expect nothing but a war with them.

I Definitions

To understand anarchy, we should discuss the purpose of

property—not because it has any relation to property—but

because every economic structure depends on the definition of

property and this definition has persisted to plague us.

Property doesn’t require use or labor to claim it. It’s profit

without labor . It’s creating something from nothing. It’s

demanding ownership of something without working for it or

using it. Then there are possessions, which require either use orlabor to claim it. Or as Proudhon says



“The right to product is exclusive — jusinre; the right to means

is common — jusadrem.”1

It was this definition of property that influenced the revolutions

of the last hundred and fifty years! This definition helped Karl

Marx define capitalism as the economic structure that uses

property and we have since waged a war with property—the

capitalists withholdingourmeanstoproduce . If we cannot live on

the land without rent, then we are born into debt and we

become the property of our owners.

He continues to say—

“Labor leads us to equality. Every step that we take brings us

nearer to it.”

It wasn’t until Marx that we understood the economic structures

created by property and possessions. At one side of it, we have

the capitalists—who invest in the means of production, to

control the means of production. The capitalist’s investment

translates to them owning the production, thereby owning the

products of the worker and separating the worker from their

product. The investment, or ownership, gives them all the votes

regarding their property: they own the means of production and

the product. The workers don’t have a vote in capitalism, and

they’re exploited of their labor by the investor who claims infinite

interest on their product. The infinite interest is claimed on theworker’s means of production and the products of it, rather than

the investment itself. At the other side of it, we have



communists—who possess their means of production and the

profits of their labor. A communist is a worker who wantsequality among the other workers producing the product. The

workers are the owners in communism. The investment is

returned to the investor, with interest, but the means of

production and the products of the labor belong to the workers.

Although Marx defined these economic structures in relation to

property, it was his imagination that harmed his argument. He

tried to describe how communism should function as a state

instead of a structure. He stated, “communism is the positive

expression of the abolition of private property.”2 He then

proceeded with his expressionof communism by suggesting a

state with progressive income tax and the means of productionto be owned by the state.3 However, as a structure, communism

is the ownership of the means of production by all the workers

creating the product. The products of their labor become their

possessions! While he imagined the workers would own their

means of production and their products, he argued that if the

products created by the workers sustained them, then theworkers would be moneyless within their union. And while his

argument is valid, it is possible for a unionoflabor to create all

the products that sustain them, his expression of the unions

being controlled by the state created the interpretation and

opposition to communism.

A union is a contract between people. Of these contracts, the

duality of economic structures is as follows:



Capitalism. The decisions are made by the owners of the

means of production.

Communism. The decisions are made by everybody in the

contract. The workers are the owners.

The duality describes how an individual has the only vote among

ten thousand workers, or how all the workers have an equal vote.

And for somebody describing anarchy, this might seem too

elaborate, but this is the stage and it needs to dismiss more

arguments than it defends.

Then what is anarchy?

The acts of equality!

An anarchist wants a contract where they’re equals in forming

and changing it. Furthermore, an anarchist doesn’t want a

contract forced upon them. They want a contract, because they

want to interact with people, but within the contracts of their

unions, an anarchist wants equality. These contracts are made by

a combination of the following decisions—

Consensusonly, where no law is made unless agreed by

everybody in the contract.

Majority, where laws are made by the majority in the

contract.

An anarchist wants contract made through consensus, but may

accept a contract made by the majority. An anarchist demands



consensus because they fear becoming the minority and they

don’t want a minority to be subjected to a union of people whoforces them into inequality. They view a union of people creating

a decision by the majority as a power allowed to abuse the

minority. The majority creates a power, or a division, between

the majority and minority classes. The actions for equality, or

anarchism, is changing the contracts made by the minority to

contracts made by consensus.

An anarchist is confronted with capitalism when the market has

no means of production for them to sustain themselves and

when none of products created in the market are owned by the

workers. Therefore, an anarchist is forced to work for a capitalist

and labor the land, not to produce for themselves, but to usetheir time as deemed by the capitalist and produce for their

property. The anarchist doesn’t have a vote in capitalism;

therefore, they stand against the hierarchy created by excluding

them from the decision-making process.

An anarchist should decide to be in a union where the law is

established by consensus. A union should form when the

individuals have consented to everything. The consent to a

contract may have conditions, such that, a union of labor is

formed by the laws regulating the production of the product. The

union of labor may vote upon a minimum of hours or tasks

expected of everybody when producing their product. An

anarchist wants to form unions, but they don’t want to be



oppressed by a union or forced out of a territory for not wanting

to participate in a union.

In capitalism, the capitalists separate the workers from the

products of their labor despite their inability to create the

product without them. Or as Proudhon says—

“The smallest fortune, the most insignificant

establishment, the setting in motion of the lowest

industry, demands the concurrence of so many different

kinds of labor and skill, that one man could not possibly

execute the whole of them. It is astonishing that the

economists never have called attention to this fact. Strike

a balance, then, between the capitalist’s receipts and his

payments.”

In communism, we have unions of labor known as worker

cooperatives. They take many forms, as each worker affects the

structure, function, and regulation of the labor created by the

cooperative.

II Forms

While the abolition of property would create equality in our

means to produce, the deprivation of equality has a bounty of

forms. This deprivation is known as power . With property, the

power allows an owner to produce a profit at the cost of the

workers. However, anarchism isn’t against power in the limited

sense of property, but rather, all contracts that forced upon



them. For instance, the state has secured its power to enforce

these contracts—such as property—by force. The state as evenmade the body a property of the state. The state has deferred its

power to the parents to mutilate their children’s genitalia, but

then sanctions the judgment of the same parents to choose to

have a child. A woman isn’t allowed to have an abortion, because

her body is under contract with the state, comparable to how a

man is contracted to be a disposable weapon in combat. Thestate forms a contract and the people are forced into it. These

contracts assume the body is property of the state. An anarchist

fights against all forms of power and doesn’t want a contract with

a union where their vote is counted as less than a vote, as with

the representative state.

And why does everybody question the representative, but not

representation? The reason we needed representation was

because communication was too expensive and the cost of it

prevented the state from being a directdemocracy. When those

costs were eliminated, the representative democracy

remained—the people fear the same voters who elect therepresentatives! The people can’t be trusted! They’re ignorant of

the issues and the representatives understand their issues better

than them. Then, the education system should be free! But it’s

not, because the representation has priorities, like surveillance

and war—and besides, it’s too complicated for the people to be

involved with their own issues. The people should wonder if somany laws would exist in their unions if their representatives



weren’t creating their issues—or, if they’re issues aren’t resolved

by their representatives, then maybe representation is the issue.

What of the circumstances where an individual wants to control

and abuse others? In order to enforce this upon the people a

power needs to be formed by the union! But is this the only fear

that lies in our hearts? That we will be raped and killed by

corrupted minds! Or are we afraid of the prisons, the institutions,

the monitoring and control, our addiction to war, and

inequalities forced upon us?

We have come together, by the millions, to fight an enemy—the

fear of an enemy. We have come together to create mass

unemployment, which produces excess, but the excess has only

benefited those higher in the hierarchy. But don’t ask me, ask

them! They know that the opposition to hierarchy is against their

will to power. If you look at their wars, it’s been to maintain their

hierarchies instead of protecting us from hierarchies. The

structure of the representative state is built upon hierarchies and

no law will threaten those with the authority to change it. Then

we have liberalism, treating and medicating the wounds of the

abused. They want us to be hungry enough to want to work for

them—but not too hungry, otherwise, the hunger will distract us

from our servitude to them. That’s not efficient, or profitable for

the capitalists, which is why they allow liberalism. The poor will

feed the poor when they don’t want to give them anything.

Instead of us making an enemy of our hierarchies, we’ve made

enemies of each other in our conquest for the throne.



But there’s still fear of the individual who will not obey the

contract, unless forced into it. We don’t want to fear for our livesbecause an individual wants a contract that allows them to kill

people. An individualist isn’t an anarchist. An anarchist wants

their unions to regulate the resources of the land, water, and air.

An anarchist wants to preserve their life and their resources

through consensus. Or as Proudhon says—

“Water, air, and light are common things, not because they

are inexhaustible, but because they are indispensable; and

so indispensable that for that very reason nature has

created them in quantities almost infinite, in order that

their plentifulness might prevent their appropriation.

Likewise the land is indispensable to our existence, — consequently a common thing, consequently insusceptible

of appropriation; but land is much scarcer than the other

elements, therefore its use must be regulated, not for the

profit of a few, but in the interest and for the security of

all.”

An individualist has no intention of being in a union and they

want to produce for themselves, by themselves; they want to

avoid the powers formed by unions. The unions could never take

knowledge from an individual, but why would the truths, the

laws, the theories—the debt and war of these contracts—be of

any interest to them? An individualist has only the power of their

own body to protect them from everything. They must refuse

language and knowledge; they must only make their own



discoveries. An individualist has no reason to listen to their

contracts and philosophies, or speak a word to anybody. Anindividualist can’t use language because language is only possible

when two or more beings form an agreement of meanings; our

languages are contracts. An individualist ignores the words of

everybody rather than persuade them to agree— for reason of

power. An individualist could most definitely have the intention

to respect the wishes of all other individuals and embrace theenvironment of where we all live, it’s not in my intention to

discriminate against them—they’re not violent beings. They

would be harmless were the unions’ theories of property not

oppressive to the individual.

The state is a union based on territory. An anarchist recognizesunions, but they’re against the commons being used against the

people. An anarchist stands against the state, the perpetuation

of war for property, and the boundaries of property formed by

force rather than the votes of the unions intending to

appropriate the land. An anarchist thinks of thelandofthefree

as the marketing of a corporation of property owners, after theymassacred millions of people for the rights to the commons and

claimed it as “public property.” The war for property, territory or

other, stands to only benefit the crown; the same stands in the

case of the state, but the people are the property of a

corporation and state. They claim a property contract of our

body, and yet, they deny responsibility as a property owner toinsure it as their property. These contracts, based upon where

our feet meet the soil, what is written on paper, gives the power



of our body to that master—because there was a line in the

ground, and the master has fought for the rights to property tothis line. An anarchist wants the people to have allowed equal

use of the land, decided and regulated with equal votes.

The commons has no contract; each individual has the rights to

use it. However, an individual cannot damage the commons or

stop others from using it. The right to abuse is permissible for

property owners, but damaging the commons should be

regulated by the various individuals and unions using it. The state

demands ownership of the land—or rather, it forces the

commons into a public property contract to justify why it is the

only union allowed to regulate it. The hierarchy of the

representative state then creates discriminatory contracts forthe public property; therefore the use of the commons is

restricted to a status and membership of the regulating union.

Without regulating the commons, an individual or union can

destroy the commons, the means, and life of others without

consequence. If we have no contracts, individuals oppose each

other by barricading themselves behind walls, guns, and fear. An

individualist has to build a form of power to protect them from

the power of unions, but in building of that power, the

individualist becomes no different than a union. A war waged

with unions is a contract, even if it’s the rejection of a contract.

It may seem similar to an anarchist’s intention, but an anarchist

accepts contracts! And the threat of rape and murder is still

there—the individualist is threatened by each individual fighting



to possess the throne and the need to feel secure from these

threats. An individualist builds their castle, brick by brick behinda wall of fear, and walks throughout the land as a king—but then

says “there are no kings,” as there could be no other kings—and

demands the kingdom to accept the individualist’s interacting

non-contract . An individualist acts as a king and assumes no other

contacts can exist. Then, the individualist can’t interact with

people, otherwise, all individuals should assume the land to betheir territory and war with them. These individualists cannot

force a non-contract any more than a union can force a contract.

An individualist wants no union at all, no contracts, and no power

formed by the people.

An individualist has no interest in a unions or equality within it.The individualists can’t expect the benefits of a union if they

don’t want to form a contract with them. If the individualists

don’t want a contract, then they must be alone. Otherwise, a

contract will exist between them, either implied or explicit. It

would be rather unfortunate for an individual to come into

contact with another individual, with an implied contract thatone would kill the other after dinner, but it never being

expressed explicitly. And if the individualist doesn’t want to form

any contracts, then it would be absurd to think they would want

to use the language and knowledge of these unions.

The union of people is supposed to protect the people from

power, rather than protect the people of power. And, if the

people form a union, where the votes of the representatives are



more valuable than the votes of the people, then the people will

fight the power of their representatives, rather than power ofrepresentation. The individualists will need to form another

union to have a voice in their union. The power of the union has

been concentrated into the votes of the representatives and the

people feel they shouldn’t vote because it doesn’t really count—

when it does count, but less than their representatives’ votes.

The state has thereby created a centralized power intending toprotect us from other forms of power. The representatives

acknowledge that they have formed a power and try to balance

it with other branches of itself.

Direct democracy, regardless of the form decided by the people,

decentralizes power. The decisions are made by everybodywanting to be involved with the issue, rather than a

concentration of people making decisions for everybody. The

corruption that seems inherent to government, to the union, is

created by the concentration of power. It costs private interests

less to buy the vote of a representative than to buy the vote of

the people.

A representative state and a capitalistic company are similar

types of unions. Both of these unions concentrate power; the

state gives a less of a vote to the people than to the

representative, and the owner gives no vote to the workers. The

difference between them is the state licenses the commons—or

creates public property, thereby allowing the people to possess

and use it through the union—while a company is regulated by



the owners. A possession is licensed to us bytheexclusiverights

ofourlabor or use, while property requires no labor or no use tobe deemed the owner. A capitalist creates property from

property without laboring it and without using it, while the

representative state removes public property licenses to benefit

themselves and their interests. They both deny the use of the

commons due to their own interests, but the state give a vote to

the people, even if the vote counts less than theirrepresentatives.

There seemstobe a division between anarchists on the actions

of anarchy; the abolition of property (expropriation and

insurrection) or the transition to unions without hierarchies

(anti-authoritarian). Or, there are some anarchists that argueonly the state or only capitalistic companies cause our issues,

rather than both of them. As though these actions and issues

need to be separate, that a power is preferable to another

power. The anarchists expect the same actions against power,

when all these actions fight hierarchies. The abolition of property

could happen in any instant, if the people were to rise to theoccasion, but it can’t be expected that the unions will adopt

these ideas. And while transitioning into unions without

hierarchies is a compromise with property owners, an anarchist

shouldn’t wait for the union to abolish it. While direct democracy

and cooperative economics is the intention, they can’t expect the

state or property to be abolished without making them useless.

III Actions



Socialism has been disguised as something other than itself,

which has led to confusion and disagreement about how tomaintain the social hierarchies, rather than abolish them. The

people have been deceived into thinking socialism consists of the

same concepts as liberalism. A liberal doesn’t want to transition

the people towards cooperative structures, and it maintains the

social hierarchy by aiding the abuses of capitalism. The liberals

don’t care if the workers are the owners, but instead, they wantto regulate the property of the wealthy and give it to the poor.

The people, according to liberals, should work for capitalists. If

the capitalists abuse them, then they will regulate the capitalists

through the government. The liberals accept the representative

state and the corruption influenced by capitalists to control the

seized property. Furthermore, the property seized by the state is

given to capitalistic companies and they profit from it under the

premise of creating work for the people. This is known as

neoliberalism. Instead of state property being returned to the

people, a company profits from it. Except, this should be

expected from a representative state: the power has been

concentrated, and the state is at the command of the highest

bidder.

While liberals have good intentions, they demand minimum and

maximum conditions. They would not agree to these contracts if

it was their choice, and rather than saying “no abuse of our

labor,” they say “we can only take eight hours of abuse.” A liberalwill take care of anybody and everybody, which is a good

intention—the intention we find in most people—but they’re



soaking the wounds of the slave instead of raising them to their

feet and setting them free!

When we talk about capitalism, we should recognize it as

similarities to another hierarchy: the monarchy. It’s is a union of

militants funded by fear. The kings and queens were wise to pull

the farmers together and tax them for services of protection,

which upon they would use to control the commons and enforce

their law. The kings and queens were land owners who used their

militaries to dictate the use of their territory, which is similar to

the state. The people within their territory, or land controlled by

their military, were under their contract. The monarchy could

starve and torture whoever stepped into their country by the

command of the military. But as these kings and queens learnedthat they produce more and more on a small amount of land,

they learned that the products of the land were more valuable

than trying to manage and protect the land. They learned that it

was more valuable to create a large quantity of products on a

small amount of land. The kings and queens of the past either

sold their land to the capitalists, as they were less able to pay thepeople than the capitalists, or they became capitalists

themselves. The power of the land was less valuable than the

power of production. They know now, that managing land is a

cost and it reduces their power, rather than maintaining it. The

kings turned into capitalists, who then expanded the definitions

of property to their benefit. A capitalist wants property, as a formof power, as a means to control the value of “the commons,”

therefore the people, through their state-enforced property.



An anarchist should view property as the commons and damage

to it as theft. An abuse of the commons should be seen asoppressor treating the commons as private property, not the

commons, because they have made a decision about it as though

they’re the only owner. The destruction of property may try to

signify the abolition of property, but possessions and the

commons are never discussed, and the hierarchy is not fought by

damaging it. While destruction to property has the intention toprevent the power of corporations from physically harming

people, or cost to the corporation more to operate, it associates

anarchy with the destruction of property rather than the

abolition of property. A corporation will change its name and

little will be gained from it; it’s the hierarchy and the theft of our

products that needs to be taught to the people. The destruction

of property has been argued to help bring awareness to an issue,

through the media, but the media is owned by the corporations.

If they’re going to broadcast anything about anarchists, they’ll

only going to depict them as destructive. That not to say that we

shouldn’t use the commons to share the voices of the people;

the people should share their voices in the commons—on the

walls and in the streets.

There are efforts to transition to unions without hierarchies and

use the market to buy back their means of production. And when

the people stand together against these hierarchies, they will

abolish property and form unions without territories. They willhave a commons again. The people shouldn’t be waiting for it to

happen though, but instead, transitioning to unions that



establish them as equals. Between housing, food, and workers

cooperatives, the people can establish equality amongthemselves and stop the hierarchies from stealing their blood

and sweat.

The abolition of property and the state is a process that will take

time, but an anarchist should begin choosing worker

cooperatives and other cooperative unions now. Also, a worker’s

cooperative doesn’t create property—it creates possessions. The

products of their labor become their possessions. Furthermore,

if they need money to trade, then they can use a form of

decentralized money to avoid the state and its taxes. An

anarchist doesn’t want to be affected by the state, which is why

there’s an aggression to fight it, but, an anarchist shouldn’t fightit, they want to deprive it of its function. The more time an

anarchist spends locked up in their prisons, the more they battle

the state, the less time they have building communities without

hierarchies. If an anarchist cooperates in shelter, food, and labor

unions, then they’ll avoid the constant theft by capitalists. An

anarchist will thereby stop paying the capitalists who deprivethem of their product and use the profits to bribe the

representatives of the state. This is anarchy, the acts of equality,

and while protests and demonstrations raise awareness and

build support for the abolition of hierarchy, the people will need

their own unions when they walk away from these hierarchies.

But are hierarchies not the clearly the curse of society? Who

demands a hierarchy based on an ethnicity? Racists. Who



demands a hierarchy based upon sex? Sexists. The hierarchies of

production, labor, and property are the products of capitalistsand statists—but why are they not as condemned by the people?

There are all types of exclusiveness that are inherent to

hierarchies, and they are all oppressive.

As for cooperatives, they’re not immune to hierarchies either, as

there are many different forms, but of the differences, the

workerownedunion should be separated from memberowned

union. These are referred to as consumer cooperatives, where

the owners earn the benefits of it without laboring for them. In

member owned unions, the ownership can be separated from

the workers and they can still be deprived of their product.

If socialism intends to help, then socialists should continue to

socialize our possessions and provide them as a resource to the

people. But socialism shouldn’t help with minimum and

maximum conditions, but help the people own their means of

production, such that they can create their own conditions. A

credit union secures a possession, but then these secured

possessions can be used as equity to invest into other

cooperatives. Although, the capitalists will not want to share

ownership with the workers and the purchase will be seen by

them as a hostileacquisition. The worker owes the investor their

investment, with interest, but then, the means of production and

product is owned by the workers. A union with enough property

should force a company into selling the production to the



workers at the lowest price and usethepropertytopayforthe

strikes.

The main conflict that arises between anarchists is due to debt.

The debt of the world is the property of the rich. We created

everything together, but all of it belongs to only a few of us. Then,

where are their arguments about incentive and competition? The

workers are in a union where the people do all the work, but only

a few of them earn the profits of the product. The people slave

away for their riches and they deserve the abolition of property!

While owners of our hierarchies give their throne to their heirs,

we earn nothing before being born into debt. The commons, the

ability to share resources, is the reasons the people come

together, but the capitalists want the profits of our labor—depriving the people of more and more—until the people have

locked themselves up into their own cages and create an artificial

environment to supplement the deprivation. And the people

blame themselves for their own deprivation, when it’s being

stolen from them. The capitalists depend upon a culture to

worship their products, to distract them from the theft. Thepeople feel that they’ll never liberate themselves from the chains

of debt, even after working tirelessly for their wages. The people

should know that the money made by unions is as worthless as

the contracts that scared slaves into servitude!

But until the people abolish property, they should refuse

capitalists and statists the money needed to oppress them. Even

if a hostile purchase is slower than abolishing property through



the state, it’s an option for the people to form unions without

hierarchies. These unions will be surrounded by hierarchies andit may be subjected to a hierarchy, but they will not operate as a

hierarchy and oppress those among them. Why do we feel

trapped in the state? Because, it isn’t a choice, and were it a

choice, it would take a lot less surveillance, prisons, torture, and

war to enforce it. Are the people free if the state can declare

itself an authority of them, without their consent, then give themless of a vote in the slave driven hierarchies that profit from their

suffering? No. The people need to abolish these hierarchies if

they cannot abolish property through the state, as property and

hierarchy are bound to each other, and property cannot exist

without a hierarchy; it demands the use of a power to steal a

product without laboring for it.

1 WhatisProperty? Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1840).

2 TheEconomicandPhilosophicalManuscripts . Karl Marx (1844).

3 TheCommunistManifesto. Karl Marx (1848).

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What is anarchy?